Hydrogen and Stupidity
by Hawki
Summary: Oneshot: Hydrogen and human stupidity were two of the most common elements in the universe. The use of the former as a fuel could lead to the proliferation of the latter throughout the Sol system, culminating with the Interplanetary War.


_The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity._

Harlan Ellison

**Hydrogen and Stupidity**

Mars was a desolate wasteland where no life could survive. A desert of barren soils, with rocks dotting the landscape. A monument to a world that had once had water in abundance, and a climate far more suitable for the development and continued existence of life. In essence, Mars was these days a lot like Earth.

A bit of an exaggeration, but for Jair Araujo, it wasn't too far flung. He'd grown up in Rio de Janeiro. He'd grown up on stories of what the continent had once been like. Of the vast Amazon Rainforest, now reduced to savanna in all but its northernmost parts. He'd read stories of how humanity had come together to save itself in the 21st story, even if they'd failed to save much of the planet they'd inhabited, let alone the species they'd shared their planet with. Colonization of the moon and Mars had begun in the 2080s, and while he'd never been to the former, he sometimes wondered what the people of the nascent Lunar States thought when they looked back on mankind's homeworld. If, when they saw the world of blues, whites, and browns, if they felt a sense of awe, that well into the 22nd century, humanity had saved its home, and become a truly extra-planetary species. And if they felt a sense of loss, at all they'd failed to say.

Jair didn't know. Stationed on the perimeter of a UNSCMC base within Mars's north polar region, he figured that he never would. The chances were that he'd die on this planet, whether it be from the Frieden or the Koslovics who had embroiled the Sol system in a three way war. An interplanetary war that had already taken on the status of a proper noun. Io was a battlefield. Mars was a battlefield. The moon was a battlefield. And even Terra Firma hadn't been spared bloodshed. He shifted in his foxhole and rose his binoculars to his helmet, scanning the surface of the frigid Martian landscape. On places like Earth, a bullet could incapacitate you. Here, a single wound could kill you. Not that he was expecting either the Frieden or Koslovics to make an attack, but still, he had a job. Keep watch, and try not to freeze to death.

_No promises, _he reflected. He leaned further forward, peering across the desolation before him. It was the Martian summer of its northern hemisphere, which meant that it was a balmy minus 31 degrees. Course, it was twilight, but even at midday, the temperatures would only reach-

"Spot anything?"

"Jesus!" He spun around, dropping the binoculars and drawing out a pistol on the marine that approached him. "You want to get shot?"

Carmen Rico shrugged. "Not really. Course, it's you, so I don't need to worry about much."

"Keep talking like that, you might." He let her slide down beside him. "Where the heck were you anyway?"

"Getting this baby." She patted the sniper rifle she carried before setting it down beside them. "Don't worry. Master sergeant cleared it."

"Uh-huh. Course he did."

Jair remained silent. Not because he couldn't speak Spanish (he could speak it as well as his native Portuguese), but because he had little to say. He had no illusions that Carmen had gone through proper channels to get a sniper rifle. Which after weeks of being stationed in this shithole, said a lot about how frayed the chain of command had become.

"So," Carmen asked. "Spot anything?"

"Rocks, dirt, more rocks, clouds…"

"Um, yeah," she said. "You do realize that joke became old weeks ago right?"

He shrugged. "What else is out here apart from rocks and dirt?"

Carmen shrugged. "Could be worse. Did you hear about the jarheads stationed in that box canyon in Tharsis? There's a Koslovic base there, but neither side can advance on each other, so they're left to bitching about stuff while asking why they're there."

Jair had no trouble believing that. Thing was, he'd asked the same question himself.

"See anything?" Carmen asked again.

He grunted and picked up his binoculars again. Why was he here. Once again, the question reared its ugly head.

He knew why he was technically here. He was here on the perimeter of Base Romeo-8. The base itself wasn't why he was here though, it was what the base was guarding – United Nations waterworks, as the polar ice was extracted and refined into drinking water, and more importantly (at least according to the brass), hydrogen fuel. Mars had no shortage of mineral deposits, but fossil fuels were a no-go, and this far out from the sun, solar power could only go so far. If any faction on Mars wanted the energy to wage war, then it needed one in abundance. Hence, hydrogen. Hydrogen from water. Hydrogen that was burnt to propel atmospheric craft to their Cobra-class tanks. People called hydrogen the fuel of the future. Jair called it the future that had come too late. Hence again, why was he here. Why was he here, freezing his arse off in the year 2162, in some kind of sick twisted experiment that proved that humanity couldn't get its shit together for five minutes even after leaving Earth. Why was he here, fighting the wars of the 22nd century (planetary real estate), after the wars of the 20th (oil) and the 21st (water and arable land)?

"See anything?" Carmen asked.

Jair sighed and looked at her. "That's like the third time you asked me that. And the answer's no. Or an answer that involves dirt, rocks, and more dirt. So when you ask me if I've seen anything five minutes from now, it's still going to be 'no,' or 'dirt,' or 'jack point shit."

She nodded behind her helmet. "Duly noted."

"Good."

It wasn't as if either of them outranked the other. He'd come from Brazil, she'd come from Argentina, they'd been drafted into the newly formed United Nations Space Command Marine Corps, been shifted off to the space elevator in Cuba, and been shot off to Mars. Two months of training on a _Cassandra_-class carrier before being taken down to the Martian surface. Supposedly, only the best of the best got to Mars, Luna, or the Jovian Moons. So far, after weeks of nothing, with the only casualties so far due to inhalation of Martian dust, radiation poisoning, and the good ol' method of freezing to death, Jair found that hard to believe. Fuck's sake, the only real action that had been seen on this planet so far was skirmishes at Argyre Planitia.

"Listen," Carmen said. She took out a flim-reel from one of her vac suit's pockets. "Think you should see this."

Jair didn't say anything. The look in her eyes, the tone of her voice…he knew when his friend wasn't joking around. An occurrence that was limited to about 10% of the time (it had initially been 15%, but months of being cooped up on a carrier did that to a person), but still occurred. So he gingerly took the flim-reel and traced his finger over it, activating the feed.

It was a news feed. He couldn't hear it, as there was no way of syncing the flim-reel with his suit's radio, but he could see what was happening. Fire. Fury. Burning rainforest. The north-western part of the Amazon to be exact. The wall of text in the bottom told him that UN, Frieden, and Neo-Koslovic Forces had engaged in a three way battle to secure the area, the result being carnage for themselves, plus the peoples who had still managed to call this rainforest home as the southernmost parts had degraded into savanna. His heart tightened, as he saw a drone feed showing the forest burning, like something out of the dark decades of the early 21st century.

_And who's to say that the world never grew out of maniacs? _Jair wondered. He handed the flim-reel back to Carmen.

"Jair?" she asked.

He picked up the binoculars again. "Thanks for showing me that."

"Um, yeah," she said. "You alright?"

"Fine," he grunted.

"Yeah, okay, I'm going to skip the part where I call bullshit and-"

"Don't touch me Carmen."

She recoiled, having reached out to put a hand on his shoulder.

"Jair, I know you-"

"Carmen, trust me – you barely know me at all. If you did, you'd know I don't want to talk." He tossed the binoculars aside and leant back in the foxhole.

Carmen remained silent. Maybe he'd hurt her feelings. If so, he told himself he didn't care. Months of training in zero g and subsequent weeks of training in the Martian hellscape had beaten a lot of empathy out of him.

Yet his mind drifted to the flim-reel, of one of the parts of the text crawling below. It had been written in English, but when it had asked **RAINFOREST WAR?**, he'd read it as **GUERRA FLORESTAL?** The Interplanetary War hadn't just spread across the Sol system, it had spread to another area of Earth as well. The Frieden and Koslovics had no shortage of resources, but they weren't centralized either. They could spring up anywhere. Attack anywhere. Writers had speculated about humanity coming into contact with alien species for centuries, and in a lot of those works, ending up in conflict. Way Jair saw it now, it was now clear that interplanetary conflict was a reality, because humanity brought conflict wherever it went. Centuries from now, if they survived this, if FTL travel was ever unlocked, he wouldn't be surprised if a war spreading across multiple star-systems would occur. Because the entirety of human history had given him no reason to think otherwise, and certainly not what was going on in mankind's home system right now.

_Hydrogen and stupidity, _he reflected. He glanced around, back to the base, and beyond that, the ice sheets. _Got no shortage of either. And because of the former, we get to indulge in the latter._

"Jair."

Hydrogen fuel had come. As had solar, as had wind, as had fusion, eventually. Too late though. Too late to stop the damage inflicted on Earth.

"Jair."

And afterwards, opening up Pandora's Box (again) and allowing warfare to be fought on the red planet just like any other war leading up to it. The downtime aside, Mars had lived up to its Roman namesake.

"Jair!"

He looked at Carmen. "What?" he hissed.

She'd picked up the binoculars he'd tossed aside, but now handed them back to him. "Take a look," she said.

Jair obliged, and cursed under his breath. "Shit," he whispered.

Armoured vehicles. APCs, IFVs, to be exact. All of them bearing the insignia of the Frieden. He looked at Carmen. "Give me the rifle."

She blinked. "What?"

"The rifle can pierce their armour. Give it to me."

She stared at him, unable to believe what he'd said.

"Oh for God's sake!"

He grabbed the rifle and propped it up on the foxhole. The rifle's scope informed him that the approaching convoy was 1.9 klicks away. Not an easy shot to make, but all he had to do was shoot one of the vehicles. Even if he didn't hit the pilot, a hull breach would at least slow them down.

"Jair, calm down. We have to call it in."

"You call it in, I'll shoot."

"Have you lost it? You fire now, they'll see us, they'll see you, and they'll know they've been spotted."

Jair wasn't listening. He was too busy getting ready to pull the trigger.

"Jair!"

Yet he didn't, as Carmen grabbed him by the shoulder. It took all of his discipline to not pull the trigger by instinct, and likewise, all of his discipline not to whack her with the rifle himself.

"I get it," she whispered. "You're hurting. Earth's bleeding. It's bled for centuries, and it's still bleeding, because we're still fighting, and we're still killing each other. But you're not going to make any of that better by getting yourself killed!"

He stared at her.

"Or me," she whispered.

Were there tears in her eyes, he wondered? Despite her helmet's lights, it was hard to tell. But tears…they were water. Water kept people alive. Water had driven conflict. Water, or rather its by-product, was fuelling conflict right now. A conflict he'd been forced into. A conflict that had ravaged his country, his planet, his home, before he'd even been born. Born into the ravaged world his ancestors had left him…

"Private Araujo calling Control," he said, activating his radio and speaking in English – the UN's lingua franca. "Incoming Frieden, light armour and troop transport. One point eight klicks out. ETA, ten minutes."

"Roger that. Hold fire and wait for further orders."

"Affirmative control. Out."

Jair terminated the feed, and glanced at Carmen. She gave him a small nod and settled down in the foxhole beside him.

Jair knew what was going to happen. Drones. Maybe a missile strike. That, followed by infantry and armoured vehicles. How the Frieden had got this close without being spotted was a mystery, but he figured that the UNMC would solve it when they were dead. One battle among many, as mankind slaughtered itself. One that, as he looked down the scope of the rifle and Carmen took the binoculars, he knew he'd have to take part in himself.

But what other choice was there?


End file.
